Newspaper Publishers welcome CAMASEJ Ethics Committee ⁰

The newly-installed Ethics & Disciplinary Committee (EDC) of the Cameroon Association of English-speaking Journalists (CAMASEJ) has been well received by newspaper publishers.

Publishers of newspapers who are the main employers of members of CAMASEJ expressed kind words and made proposals to the Executive Secretary of EDC in the first outing by the Ethics Committee since it began its operations about a week ago.

Paying a courtesy call on newspaper publishers in Buea on 5 June, EDC’s Executive Secretary, Franklin Sone Bayen, had a brief exchange with them on the sidelines of the CENPA Awards organized by the Cameroon English Language Newspaper Publishers’ Association (CENPA) at Mountain Hotel in Buea.

For about 30 minutes, Bayen engaged with nearly 20 newspaper publishers, explaining the vision, mission and methods of EDC to achieve its objectives.

“As newspaper publishers, you are employers of CAMASEJ members as well as many of you are members of CAMASEJ, thus EDC concerns you,” said the EDC Executive Secretary in his opening statement.

 “We are told Jesus came to die for our sins but I think he also came to understand mankind, to have our human experience so that when he sits in judgement besides God the Father, he would use his experience in human frailty to tamper the wrath of God who is perfect. He would beg the Father to take it easy because he lived the experience of the temptations that lead Man to commit sin. He would tell the Father, for example, that being in the company of Mary and Martha and feeling the sensation of a woman oiling his feet, He understands better why Man can fall into sin, though sexual misconduct may not be totally excused,” Bayen went on.

“Likewise, we, members of EDC, being your colleagues, will not act as if we are perfect. We’ll act with an understanding of the challenges of our profession and its pitfalls though we must uphold values because blatant misconduct must not be tolerated, else impunity and abuses would thrive,” he said.

Bayen said that is why the best media regulation is self-regulation under peer review.

He told the publishers that EDC is not a declaration of war on journalists and publishers but a partner to assist publishers in maintaining order in their newsrooms by guiding and cautioning reporters and editors who could be perpetrators of professional ethical misconduct which could be costly to publishers themselves.

“Unlike undertakers and others in the death industry like coffin makers and hearse rentals who may wish for people to die for their business to thrive, we at ED rather wish for fewer or no media offences as the absence of offences would be good news to us, because it means less work for us and also that would suggest that journalists are increasingly ethically consciousness,” the Ethics henchman went on.

Bayen said EDC wishes to collaborate with publishers for a number of reasons. He said EDC wants publishers to give it logistic support by making available their newspapers to ease EDC monitoring due to its limited means.

EDC also wants publishers to take the commitment to enforce EDC recommendations and decisions on its staff because that would also save them the troubles the unethical misconduct of their staff can bring upon them.

Reacting, some newspaper publishers expressed certain concerns. Choves Loh, publisher of The News newspaper, proposed the inclusion of non-CAMASEJ members in EDC to broaden its scope of influence beyond just CAMASEJ members.

Elias Ngalame, publisher of Eco-Outlook advised EDC to bear in mind the commercial interests of newspapers and understand that ethical considerations may be limited in commercial reporting or “advertorials” in the local Press parlance.

Bouddih Adams of The Post said clearcut distinctions between news, editorials and commercial or advertorial content would save newspapers EDC’s wrath.

Responding to the publishers, the EDC Executive Secretary said EDC would take their concerns into consideration where possible but pointed out that as a general principle, commercial stories must be labelled as “advertorial” or “spotlight” or “special report”, without which they are ethically wrong.

Bayen told the publishers that in continuation of EDC’s outreach, it will visit individual newsrooms in the coming days to hold working sessions with their staff and sign Memorandums of Understand with publishers.

Besides watching over ethics in news media, EDC also has the duty of ensuring discipline among CAMASEJ members.